Dean Zelinsky

Zelinsky was the second of three boys born to Robert and Sylvia Zelinsky in Chicago, IL. Robert was a successful executive and business owner, whose company designed and manufactured custom fasteners; some of which wound up in early United States space program rockets. Dean began tinkering with electronics early on in his childhood; he was taking radios apart to see what made them work & reassembling them at age eight. When Dean was 12 years old, his father died in a plane crash while piloting his own twin-engine plane. His widow raised three boys, Dean, Glenn, and Roger in the wake of this tragedy.

In February 2000 Dean Zelinsky returned to Dean Guitars on a consultant basis primarily to oversee Marketing, USA production and Artist Relations. Zelinsky also designed new models for the Dean Guitars line up. Zelinsky used his past connections to bring top artists to the company including Dimebag Darrell, Michael Schenker, Leslie West and Dave Mustaine...all who received artist models with the company. In May 2008, Zelinsky left the company over a contract dispute. In August 2008 Zelinsky founded his new company DBZ Guitars. He remained CEO until he left, to form yet another company - Dean Zelinsky Private Label.

Dean had been designing custom entertainment centers and high-end furniture under the business name of Dean Barrett for clientele that ranged from CEO’s on Chicago’s North Shore, to superstars like Michael Jordan from the Chicago Bulls. Dean was lured back into the music industry, taking on the challenge of helping to re-build the brand he started nearly two decades earlier when the offer came. Dean built up the business with his team of Internet professionals.

Dean also did some mentoring, which was the case when he spent some time at an in-store event in Dallas, TX with a young guitar player that appeared asking for his autograph. Darrell Abbott (Dimebag Darrell from Pantera, DamagePlan) from Arlington, TX had won a Dean ML Guitar when he was a teenager, but the chance encounter between Dimebag and Dean Zelinsky would forge a lifelong friendship that started back in the 80’s and picked up in 2004 when Dean signed Dimebag to an endorsement deal. Dean was supposed to meet up with Darrell in December 2004 to unveil the guitar they worked on together but unfortunately, their plans were cut short on December 8, 2004 minutes after Dime took to the stage at the Alrosa Villa club in Columbus, OH when a crazed fan shot him. This tragedy had a profound effect on the music world, as well as on some of the greatest guitar players in the world including longtime friends of Darrell’s, Eddie Van Halen, and Zakk Wylde, and also on Dean. Dean has written extensively about his sense of loss based on the events surrounding Dime’s passing. Dean's son, Tyler, coincidentally had conducted the last video interview with Dimebag just weeks before his untimely demise. It has been featured on the Internet and also excerpts were licensed by VH1 for a special on Rock Wives. The video has also been published in Guitar World Magazine.